Demonetisation, Digitisation, GST, Financial Sector reforms … I find myself on very unfamiliar territory nowadays. Very unfamiliar.
Most of my life, I have been used to watching governments coming and going in India, leaving me with fleeting impressions of policies/actions that I liked or didn’t like (always specific policies or Acts or laws, never anything more monumental than random isolated instances of governance). The parade of governments since October 1984 right up till 2014 falls into this body of experience, and each of the governments in this period left me with a clear impression that the country was a ship that was sailing at the mercy of the winds.
Hope and Prayer were the two pillars for me as a common citizen.
The 1989 and 1991 governments were exceptions in the sense that the goals, approach and outcomes were clear to common citizens, the first to the extent that it was driven by a mass movement for reservations, and the second to the extent that an inevitable liberalisation was shepherded in.
Now we have a government led by a strong and opinionated leader, Narendra Modi, who knows his vision for the country, and who knows how he wants it implemented and who has firm ideas about what role he expects institutions, citizens and the world at large to play.
Most importantly, he seems to know how to simultaneously mobilise all of the resources available to the country to achieve those goals – strategic, diplomatic, intellectual, media, social media, governance, cultural, policy, operational, funding, goodwill.
But here’s why I am in unfamiliar territory: For the first time, I perceive a government that is not just taking a 360 (spherical) degree view of all its challenges and battles but is actually a few steps ahead of everybody else in any given moment. The government is taking on all established notions, practices and opponents (including within it own party) and taking planned steps to dismantle and rebuild paradigms all across – no incremental steps. Previous governments and leaders had great ideas too but they lacked the will or the capability to make it happen because they were conscious of their image and wanted to be perceived as being ‘good’ by all or most. This government is getting on with the job of achieving its vision for the country, irrespective of what the world thinks or says.
And while it is easier to pin all the credit and critiques on the PM, I ought to realise that it takes an entire machinery to achieve such seamless operational efficiency.
And the efficiency is in the spotlight mainly because no other entity really has the competence to take on this government’s operational capabilities, and therefore, opposition/media/those opposed to the PM/BJP/right-wing are quite at sea on how to effectively play their roles of dissent.
This government’s term is already a period of an unprecedented number of steps taken to revamp the entire country’s functioning. From digitisation, demonetisation and curbing of gas subsidies to banning red beacons to driving the lethargic bureaucracy to timely performance to revamping financial sector to Aadhar implementation to GST to making clear bold statements to the globe on how India will engage on its own terms to reviewing and revamping laws and policies … it’s a long list.
Meanwhile, intelligentsia and media and common folk and businesses et al continue to debate, discuss, disagree, criticise, praise parts or whole of the government’s actions.
Whether we agree or disagree or agree to disagree with any or all of its actions or measures, this Indian government is going to do whatever it figures it has been elected to do.
I am an apolitical person at heart (neither left nor right nor centre nor on the fence or the parapet or the wall or on any window). And as such, I have to wonder what could have been achieved if we had a competent opposition, a constructive media and a consistent judiciary. I have a feeling the government may end up prescribing what those should look like as well, in due course.
And that’s when common citizens and institutions will have to do a lot more than dissent in rhetoric – because that’s when efficiency and accuracy in articulation will be required the most, lest democratic institutions change shape. Right now it is a battle of two very unequal sides, and unless the kaccha limbus gets their act together, there will be a lot more to gripe about.
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